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Top 30 David James Duncan Quotes (2025 Update)

David James Duncan Quote: “Ecosystems are holy. The word “environmental” is a deadly compromise itself. It’s a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.”

1. “Ecosystems are holy. The word “environmental” is a deadly compromise itself. It’s a policy word that lives only in the head, and barely there.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the “sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew.” I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being.”

2. “The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the “sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew.” I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The principles that will save Earth’s life are the same principles that save the living souls of humans: ineluctable spiritual principles.”

3. “The principles that will save Earth’s life are the same principles that save the living souls of humans: ineluctable spiritual principles.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “We hear nothing so clearly as what comes out of silence.”

4. “We hear nothing so clearly as what comes out of silence.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “People who vote for candidates bought by private business interests are not politically free in any real sense.”

5. “People who vote for candidates bought by private business interests are not politically free in any real sense.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The bad thing about falling into pieces is that it hurts. The good thing about it is that once you’re lying there in shards you’ve got nothing left to protect, and so have no reason not to be honest.”

6. “The bad thing about falling into pieces is that it hurts. The good thing about it is that once you’re lying there in shards you’ve got nothing left to protect, and so have no reason not to be honest.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I’d taken a big fat crisis off my shoulders and loaded it all on Jesus, which seemed unfair in a way, but was exactly what the Bible recommended.”

7. “I’d taken a big fat crisis off my shoulders and loaded it all on Jesus, which seemed unfair in a way, but was exactly what the Bible recommended.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Punctuationally speaking, wonder is a period at the end of a statement we’ve long taken for granted, suddenly looking up and seeing the sinuous curve of a tall black hat on its head, and realizing it was a question mark all along.”

8. “Punctuationally speaking, wonder is a period at the end of a statement we’ve long taken for granted, suddenly looking up and seeing the sinuous curve of a tall black hat on its head, and realizing it was a question mark all along.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can’t express. Likewise, the heart is just a word for something in us that music sometimes touches.”

9. “Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can’t express. Likewise, the heart is just a word for something in us that music sometimes touches.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “And into the brown paper bag of my heart, Eddy slipped a smile.”

10. “And into the brown paper bag of my heart, Eddy slipped a smile.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times – and on me – nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we’d finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment.”

11. “I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times – and on me – nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we’d finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Sinner” and “saint” are waves of differing size and magnitude on the surface of the same sea. Each is a natural outcome of forces in the universe; each is governed by time and causation. Nobody is utterly lost, and nobody need despair.”

12. “Sinner” and “saint” are waves of differing size and magnitude on the surface of the same sea. Each is a natural outcome of forces in the universe; each is governed by time and causation. Nobody is utterly lost, and nobody need despair.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Is the work of sun worshippers to honor those who think they can see the sun? Or to worship the sun?”

13. “Is the work of sun worshippers to honor those who think they can see the sun? Or to worship the sun?”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “But I finally concluded that it is an inalienable right of lovers everywhere to become temporarily worthless to the world, it may even be their duty.”

14. “But I finally concluded that it is an inalienable right of lovers everywhere to become temporarily worthless to the world, it may even be their duty.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “There were some crucial things Vera’s parents were forgetting about crosses, was what Peter said. One was that Jesus was nailed to His by enemies, not by Mary and Joseph. And another, he said, was that it killed Him. Christ’s cross killed Him. We’ve got to remember what crosses are, Peter said. They’re not just decorations on steeples. They’re murder weapons, he said, the same as guns, or gas chambers, or electric chairs.”

15. “There were some crucial things Vera’s parents were forgetting about crosses, was what Peter said. One was that Jesus was nailed to His by enemies, not by Mary and Joseph. And another, he said, was that it killed Him. Christ’s cross killed Him. We’ve got to remember what crosses are, Peter said. They’re not just decorations on steeples. They’re murder weapons, he said, the same as guns, or gas chambers, or electric chairs.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Is a lifelong student of the world’s wisdom literature, it is my duty to inform students that ridding the world of evil is a goal very different from any recommended by Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad, though not so different from some recommended by Joseph Stalin, Joseph McCarthy and Mao Tse Tung.”

16. “Is a lifelong student of the world’s wisdom literature, it is my duty to inform students that ridding the world of evil is a goal very different from any recommended by Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad, though not so different from some recommended by Joseph Stalin, Joseph McCarthy and Mao Tse Tung.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “To me, it’s a great day every time I receive a letter from somebody who climbed inside one of my books, inhabited it for a while, learned a little something, and emerged grateful.”

17. “To me, it’s a great day every time I receive a letter from somebody who climbed inside one of my books, inhabited it for a while, learned a little something, and emerged grateful.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I simply knew, via song, sunlight, redwings and cottonwoods, that there was a world I was born to live in, that the men I was standing beside lived in another, and that as long as I remembered this their words would never hurt me again.”

18. “I simply knew, via song, sunlight, redwings and cottonwoods, that there was a world I was born to live in, that the men I was standing beside lived in another, and that as long as I remembered this their words would never hurt me again.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “This man obviously contained some sort of catalytic converter that rendered the filth of his language as natural and inoffensive as dirt in a garden.”

19. “This man obviously contained some sort of catalytic converter that rendered the filth of his language as natural and inoffensive as dirt in a garden.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “But churches always have been the leading cause of the need for churches.”

20. “But churches always have been the leading cause of the need for churches.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Our lack of community is intensely painful. A TV talk show is not community. A couple of hours in a church pew each Sabbath is not community. A multinational corporation is neither a human nor a community, and in the sweatshops, defiled agribusiness fields, genetic mutation labs, ecological dead zones, the inhumanity is showing. Without genuine spiritual community, life becomes a struggle so lonely and grim that even Hillary Clinton has admitted “it takes a village”.”

21. “Our lack of community is intensely painful. A TV talk show is not community. A couple of hours in a church pew each Sabbath is not community. A multinational corporation is neither a human nor a community, and in the sweatshops, defiled agribusiness fields, genetic mutation labs, ecological dead zones, the inhumanity is showing. Without genuine spiritual community, life becomes a struggle so lonely and grim that even Hillary Clinton has admitted “it takes a village”.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Fiction writing feels more honest to me.”

22. “Fiction writing feels more honest to me.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The man on the rock had pitched five outs in the losing game, and had given up two runs on a single. But he’d inherited loaded bases. The story of his life. The story of all our lives.”

23. “The man on the rock had pitched five outs in the losing game, and had given up two runs on a single. But he’d inherited loaded bases. The story of his life. The story of all our lives.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I started having doubts right on top of my certainty.”

24. “I started having doubts right on top of my certainty.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The environment, what surrounds you, is so alive and delightful and complex.”

25. “The environment, what surrounds you, is so alive and delightful and complex.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I’m back!” he told Life.”

26. “I’m back!” he told Life.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “My books are inert as cordwood till a readers imagination ignites one and an old flame jumps to life.”

27. “My books are inert as cordwood till a readers imagination ignites one and an old flame jumps to life.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “All human giving is fiction giving. Only the Absolute nonfictively owns; hence only the Absolute can nonfictively give; hence the mortal who believes that he or she owns, stands no chance of receiving what the Absolute has to nonfictively give.”

28. “All human giving is fiction giving. Only the Absolute nonfictively owns; hence only the Absolute can nonfictively give; hence the mortal who believes that he or she owns, stands no chance of receiving what the Absolute has to nonfictively give.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “When experience flies into realms that language cannot touch, honesty demands beyond-language.”

29. “When experience flies into realms that language cannot touch, honesty demands beyond-language.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “I didn’t hurt anymore, didn’t feel like hiding anymore, wasn’t scared anymore. Because I wasn’t anything anymore. Not anything I love or know or care about. Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are – if doing this to others before they do it unto us is all our lives are – we’re already dead.”

30. “I didn’t hurt anymore, didn’t feel like hiding anymore, wasn’t scared anymore. Because I wasn’t anything anymore. Not anything I love or know or care about. Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are – if doing this to others before they do it unto us is all our lives are – we’re already dead.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “Baseball is not life. It is a fiction, a metaphor. And a ballplayer is a man who agrees to uphold that metaphor as though lives were at stake.”

31. “Baseball is not life. It is a fiction, a metaphor. And a ballplayer is a man who agrees to uphold that metaphor as though lives were at stake.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “He said there are two ways for a hitter to get the pitch he wants. The simplest way is not to want any pitch in particular. But the best way, he said – which sounds almost the same, but is really very different – is to want the very pitch you’re gonna get. Including the one you can handle. But also the one that’s gonna strike you out looking. And even the one that’s maybe gonna bounce off your head.”

32. “He said there are two ways for a hitter to get the pitch he wants. The simplest way is not to want any pitch in particular. But the best way, he said – which sounds almost the same, but is really very different – is to want the very pitch you’re gonna get. Including the one you can handle. But also the one that’s gonna strike you out looking. And even the one that’s maybe gonna bounce off your head.”

— David James Duncan

David James Duncan Quote: “The crowd-pleasing, pilfered genre had mated with democracy and produced a seemingly invincible bastard: government by force of farce.”

33. “The crowd-pleasing, pilfered genre had mated with democracy and produced a seemingly invincible bastard: government by force of farce.”

— David James Duncan

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